A BEHIND-THE-SCENES look at West Cheshire College’s new Ellesmere Port campus saw more than 1,000 prospective students and residents visit the building.

The open day at the Sutton Way site on August 31 was attended by new and current students, parents, local employers as well as large number of local residents.

Sara Mogel, principal at West Cheshire College, said: “The open day was a great success and we had an overwhelming amount of visitors on the day.

“We have had some great feedback and everybody was very impressed by our new facilities.

“On the day we had an influx of people enrolling for September and there was a lot of excitement amongst both staff and students about to start at the new campus.”

As well as the opportunity to tour the building, visitors had the chance to take part in a variety of activities including learning sign language, a taster session in the fine dining restaurant, DNA extraction and forensic analysis and a zumba class.

New facilities in the 19,500 sq ft campus include a replica aircraft cabin for travel and tourism students, a patient simulator for health and social care students, a hairdressing salon run in partnership with Francesco’s, a new beauty therapy room featuring 28 treatment beds and four private treatment rooms, a theatre with 150 retractable seats, a 1,340 sq ft dance studio and a 38-seater fine dining restaurant which will serve fine British cuisine with a modern twist.

Sara added: “Our new campuses in both Ellesmere Port and Chester are designed to provide the best environment for vocational learning, so our students will be ready for the world of work when they leave college.”

The college had more than 1,600 students aged 16-18 years old enrolling this week, with 300 enrolling on the open day. In total the college has more than 2,500 16-18-year- olds due to start September 5 and more than 20,000 learners across its two campuses, the workplace and adult learners.